The Element of the Table: Visual Discourse and the Preperiodic Representationof Chemical Classification

摘要

Visual representations do things: they can sit quietly and be observed; they may aid in the performance of some activity, let's say, in science; they may act as repositories for previously compiled information; they may, through the format of their presentation, guide users or readers toward new ideas, or new practices. In science, and in chemistry particularly, visual representations are vital components of the material culture of practice. (Such an observation is not new.) Classifications in the sciences can be described with many of the same terms as visual representations. Classifications do things: they compile the past; they frame the future; they aid in the practice of a science; either they may be embedded within a theoretical edifice, or a theory may be embedded within them (if there is a difference). When we combine these two singularly rich subjects in scientific and artistic studies to focus on how classification schemes are visually represented, another view of history opens up that questions a presumed temporal order: here the representation is not necessarily the end point of a study; instead, it can be viewed as a productive contributor to the process that creates classifications and science. Those representations have a dual temporal direction, bringing the past into the present while also pointing to the future. Chemistry tables in particular exemplify this role in the practice of chemistry by acting as complex symbol systems defined by tabulations in grids, boxes, and spaces.